I am an IronMan!

Somewhere around 10:22 pm last night I successfully completed my quest to become an IronMan. I felt a huge sense of accomplishment crossing the finish line. Here's a really brief race report.

I was much faster out of the water than I expected to be.

I started out very strong on the bike. But, I was definitely starting to feel tired heading into the second section of the course and was pretty much totally "done" with the bike at 100 miles. Note: There was some issue with the last split for the bike. I'm guessing that they didn't place the sensor where they had originally planned. There is no way I averaged almost 20 mph. It's far more likely that I averaged 10 mph.

Heading out for the run I really had no idea how I was going to make it through a marathon. I decided to walk the first three miles to give myself a chance to catch my breath, have something to eat and drink and let my legs loosen up some. From mile 3 to mile 14 I used the run 4 / walk 1 approach. But, then I was starting to feel quite spent. I tried run 1 / walk 1 for the next mile. But, I was still feeling pretty wiped out at mile 15. Since there was an open grassy field near that mile marker, I decided to lay down and rest for a bit. A volunteer on the course came over and encouraged my to take some salt, and I took her up on the suggestion. I walked from mile 15 to mile 20 and continued taking salt here and there. At mile 20 I decided to do a bit of run / walk. It was dark at that point and I couldn't see my watch. So, I just went by feel. When I had some energy a did a bit of running until I started to feel my shoulders and legs tighten and then I walked more.

I had thought that budgeting 18 minutes total for transition was more than generous enough. As it turns out, I took about 28 minutes total. I took about 12 minutes in T1 and 16 minutes in T2. I'm not surprised that T2 took longer than I had figured because we did have a decent distance to cover after we dismounted our bikes. I'm not sure why T1 took longer than I thought, other than I did do a complete change of clothes and I didn't have my glasses.

My total time was 15:53:52. All in all, I wasn't too far from my target time. Fortunately I picked up a bunch of time on the swim and bike.

Having now completed this, it seems so much more surreal to me to be able to accomplish such a crazy thing.

I feel good today. The biggest issue I have is that my right knee is tight and sore.

I give thanks to the Universe for the abundance it provides me. I surrender and am open and ready to receive.